


mistakes unmade

by heylifeitsemily



Series: awfully fond [4]
Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: F/M, Guilt, Moon Godlike Watcher, Pre-Relationship, white march spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 23:28:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19119895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heylifeitsemily/pseuds/heylifeitsemily
Summary: "I can't sleep," she says. Could be the standard nightmares keeping her up, or that closing her eyes sends her right back to the bottom of that frozen lake again, but he doesn't trust himself to ask. He doesn't trust himself to try and speak at all.





	mistakes unmade

Edér hears her coming for once - the cold must be making her bones creak. That, or she's too exhausted to keep quiet, which means she shouldn't be awake at all. The Watcher settles down next to him, wreathed in so many blankets that she's practically a walking bedroll.

"I can't sleep," she says. Softly, like it's something to be ashamed of. Could be the standard nightmares keeping her up, or that closing her eyes sends her right back to the bottom of that frozen lake again, but he doesn't trust himself to ask. He doesn't trust himself to try and speak at all.

Edér breathes in through his pipe, holding it for a second before letting out a few circles of greyish smoke. She watches them travel and expand and dissipate into the air, and then turns back to the fire. Even in her cocoon, she shivers, inching closer to it.

He takes another drag. Stuff's too weak to help his nerves, but it's easier to focus on the film that coats his throat than to look at her. He blinks, and her hands are trembling as she weighs Abydon's hammer, and there's something sickly and beautiful in the way the crystal's fragmented light is the same bluish-purple as her skin - 

"I'm not sorry that I did it," she continues, breaking into his reverie. Her voice is soft again, but this time like she's letting him in on a secret. "And I can't promise it won't happen again. Unless it's Durance on the line," she adds with a grin. "I might let that slide." 

He watches the flames curl and writhe without so much as cracking a smile, and her face falls in his peripheral. _It_ , being resigning herself to an icy grave to down an army of constructs, has a pretty slim chance of ever happening again because the world is rarely so courteous as to offer a do-over. And  _it,_ being sacrificing herself for the greater good, is just about as likely, since he'll be damned if he lets her pull anything that heroic or stupid again while he's got two working arms to hold her back with.

She creeps another bit closer to the fire as the silence grows heavy. Her skin is too pale, too cool a blue against the flames near licking at her cloak of blankets.

"I can't ask for forgiveness if I'm not sorry, but," she trails off. She shakes her head, the snowfall collecting in her hair drifting gently downwards but vanishing with the heat before it reaches the ground.

"I don't know," she shrugs. "I hope you can forgive me anyway. Some day."

He was the last to greet her after she broke through the surface of the lake. Her being alive was call for celebration most days, but he couldn't bring himself to pull her in for a hug like the others did, not when she was shaking like a leaf in the wind and the blue of her lips was more violet than sky.

She's alive, shivering next to him. It shouldn't matter that he's the better swimmer or more suited to the cold. She's here all the same.

He should've insisted, even if she would've insisted right back. 

He's failed her somehow. He's angry - at himself, at her, at the snow falling to the ground gently in the breeze. She's shaking from the chill, and he's burning with aimless fury.

Some protector he is. Some friend.

The Watcher shivers again, and he takes mercy on her, pulling her under the crook of his arm. She sighs with relief at the warmth, and he's still so furious he can't speak, but he doesn't need to in order to keep her safe. He can defend her from the wind chill, from getting too close to the fire - defend her from everything but herself.

Her hand snakes out to find his where it rests on her shoulder, giving it two squeezes in quick succession. Edér's thumb wanders down her wrist until it rests on her pulse, and through another hazy breath he returns the gesture, in time with her heartbeat.

 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I'm just posting these as I go, so lemme know if you see any mistakes! Hope you liked it!


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